diff --git a/scripts/verify-real-kuna.mjs b/scripts/verify-real-kuna.mjs
index 2361c98ac2..289073c9ae 100644
--- a/scripts/verify-real-kuna.mjs
+++ b/scripts/verify-real-kuna.mjs
@@ -83,8 +83,11 @@ const FIXTURE_SOURCE = String.raw`
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
 static const char rea_kuna_utf8[] __attribute__((used)) = "＿φ( °-°)/ REA unicode marker";
+/* The leading NUL unit ends any UTF-16 run that bytes before this array would
+   start: the UTF-8 marker's last byte and NUL decode as the unit 'r', so on
+   layouts where it precedes this array Kuna reports "rREA wide marker". */
 static const unsigned short rea_kuna_wide[] __attribute__((used)) = {
-  'R','E','A',' ','w','i','d','e',' ','m','a','r','k','e','r',0
+  0,'R','E','A',' ','w','i','d','e',' ','m','a','r','k','e','r',0
 };
 #include <string.h>
 __attribute__((noinline)) unsigned rea_checksum(const unsigned char *p, size_t n) {